Orison Swett Marden 
Stepping Stones to Fame and Fortune 

Rousseau says: ‚According to the order of nature, men being equal, their common vocation is the profession of humanity; and whoever is well educated to discharge the duty of a man cannot be badly prepared to fill any of those offices that have a relation to him. It matters little to me whether my pupil be designed for the army, the pulpit, or the bar. To live is the profession I would teach him. When I have done with him, it is true he will be neither a soldier, a lawyer, nor a divine. Let him first be a man; Fortune may remove him from one rank to another, as she pleases, he will be always found in his place.‘
‚First of all, ‚ replied the boy James A. Garfield, when asked what he meant to be, ‚I must make myself a man; if I do not succeed in that, I can succeed in nothing.‘
‚Hear me, O men, ‚ cried Diogenes, in the market place at Athens; and, when a crowd collected around him, he said scornfully, ‚I called for men, not pigmies.‘